In Time
by Kate September
Summary: Erik has his protege in Christine, who can sing with the angels. But now Madame Giry has found hers in a young woman who can dance like an angel. EC, EOW...Complete.
1. Of Gift Horses and Ballet Teachers

Madame Giry burned as she hurried along the damp boulevards. What she had seen had set her heart pounding, the blood warming her and buzzing in her ears. Memory clashed with potential, and she could hardly think coherently. Her only thought was to find **_him_**.

She slipped into the back entrance of the Opera Populaire, her clear eyes quickly taking in everyone that milled about in the crowded corridors. But even the sight of three of her dances indulging in a bottle with two of the stagehands was not enough to distract her from the urgency of her errand.

Quietly, like a lithe, graceful shadow, Madame Giry made her way to the less frequented lower levels of the Opera. And, without a sound, she slid open the wall panel she knew lead to a world where she was not welcome. Silently, she sighed.

Even she, of all people, was forbidden in his realm, such were his lingering wounds. However, she proceeded with a modicum of confidence, knowing that her usefulness to him would probably prevent him from depriving her precious Meg of a mother. Probably.

The ballet instructor descended the grim spiraling staircase until she reached the edge of the lake. The silence was broken only by the lapping of the water against the stone.

Suddenly, Madame Giry felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise, and a chill ran through her, though her training prevented her from making any movement.

"I have come here only because I am in desperate need of your help," she said, knowing that unless she spoke first, he would have been content to glare at the back of her neck in endless silence until she went away.

"This is…rather sudden," was the whispered reply, heavily colored with cynicism and doubt. After all, if Madame Giry was in trouble, he would have known it. He knew everything about everyone in this opera house.

"Yes," Madame Giry replied crisply, keeping her voice low but reasonable and business-like. "But sudden or not, it is urgent, and you are the only one who can help me."

There was a pause. Madame Giry scowled lightly to the emptiness of the vast lake at getting no reply.

"It is time to repay the favor I did you all those years ago," she continued evenly.

"What do you want of me, Madame?" was the icy response, a voice as sharp as frost on glass.

"I intend to deprive the gypsies of another prize," Madame Giry said, her own breath catching as she thought of what she had seen. "I will take her from them and bring to the Opera Populaire such a talent as has never yet been seen on this stage!"

There was a quick, sharp rustling behind her, but Madame Giry knew that he was still there.

"There is already a great talent ready to take center stage," the voice growled, the menace echoing off the cold stones.

"A singer, yes," Madame Giry replied. "Yes, I know your pupil can sing with the angels. But I…I have found someone who can dance like one!"

The silence behind her seemed to register surprise, then doubt.

"I need her talent here!" Madame Giry pressed quietly. "She is wasted by those evil men. Her dancing could summon tears from stone if properly trained."

The doubting silence behind her lengthened.

"She suffers," Madame Giry added, her voice barely a whisper as her throat closed with the painful memory of years and years ago. "You know what those men are like. You know what they do."

She felt the air behind her grow painfully tense, and she almost thought she heard the cracking of leather gloves as hands balled into fists.

"They are performing in the street behind the Comedie Francaise," Madame Giry said firmly. "The girl is perhaps 17. She has brown hair and grey eyes. There is a scar that encircles her left ankle."

The ballet teacher swallowed hard, anticipation rushing through her veins.

"The stables. Midnight."

Madame Giry let out the breath she had been holding as the slight swirling disturbance in the air behind her let her know he was gone.

She smiled to herself. He was not the only one who could make and mould a star.

* * *

He cursed roundly but silently as he noiselessly made his way through the dark streets. The clattering of carriages on the cobblestones and scurrying of rats in the alleys seemed to echo the tension he felt.

He, who prided himself on living beyond the pale of humanity's weak morality, found himself morally bound to honor Madame Giry's incredible, ludicrous request. He snarled inwardly and bitterly thanked the stars in the Parisian night that there were no other human beings to whom he owed favors.

No, there was only one perfect human being that could ask anything of him without having to trade in past kindnesses. And she was more angel than human. His little nightingale, his beloved, perfect Christine.

His heart fluttered as it always did when he recalled her sweet oval face, the way her full lips parted slightly when she was delighted, the way her chest rose and fell with breathlessness from singing or dancing.

Dancing.

And now Madame Giry wanted this dancer. Did she not have a chorus full of chits to pick from? No, he moaned to himself. No, she had to go and find her little protégé in some foul gypsy caravan.

He ground his teeth in a wave of unreasonable anger as he skirted the darkened colonnade in front of the Comedie Francaise. Damn all dancers. Except Christine.

The gypsy encampment in the narrow street behind the Comedie seemed quiet. He stepped noiselessly through the maze of wagons, narrowed eyes peeking inside cracks and wrinkling his nose in disgust at the foul smells he remembered so painfully well.

Finally, he found her. Filthy little thing – a pile of rags curled up on dirty straw, her grubby little hands tucked under her chin. The strange scar that encircled her left ankle confirmed that she was indeed the dancer that Madame Giry wanted.

With a silent sigh, he withdrew a thin, delicate tool that he inserted into the lock of the cage. A moment later, there was a telltale "click," but he took no pride in that, for it was a cheap, clumsy lock. He removed the lock from the door and swung it open.

The girl stirred in her sleep, but did not awaken, which was fine by him.

He drew back into the shadows again. He picked up a small piece of chipped cobblestone, and with perfect aim, tossed it into the cage so that it landed and struck the girl on the head.

With a gasp, she sat up, then immediately winced and grabbed her ribs. As the momentary pain receded, she became aware that the door was open.

He watched carefully, noting with grudging approval that she looked around her first before cautiously and silently crawling toward the door.

"Follow me," he whispered suddenly, swirling his cape in the darkness to catch her attention, then running deeper into the shadows.

He heard the girl's barefoot steps pound the pavement behind him as he lead her a merry chase through the inky black streets. He skirted the small pools of light thrown off by the gaslights and kept to the shadows. He ducked, swerved, jumped and crouched, taking a circuitous route back to the Opera Populaire.

Again, he was forced to grudgingly approve of the girl's nimbleness. She missed not a single beat as he made her dance her way to freedom. It wasn't his responsibility to test Madame Giry's little acquisition, but he had to admit his curiosity. The ballet teacher was grudging with praise and miserly with her assessment of talent. Therefore, he was curious to see what kind of dancer could win such passionate vehemence from Madame Giry.

He kept to the shadows all the way back to the stables, and then, like a magician, seemed to disappear into thin air as Madame Giry stepped into view.

The girl stopped, her breaths heavy as she tried to catch them. She looked about for a moment, confused, searching for the shadowy figure, the dark piper who had lead her to freedom. But all she saw was a woman.

"Do not be afraid," Madame Giry said kindly, approaching the girl. "You are at the Opera Populaire. No one will harm you here."

The girl glanced about her nervously, as if trying to see into the inky darkness.

"What is your name?" Madame Giry prompted gently.

"Rose," the girl replied softly.

How appropriate, he thought ironically before slipping away to meet his angel for her lesson.


	2. The Discourse of Pots and Kettles

**_Thank you to my first reviewer! You inspired me to write Chapter 2 right on the spot. _**

**_-Kate_**

* * *

He slept fitfully. His dreams were too vivid, too tantalizing, too full of softness and sweet, silky things that paid no heed to the cold reality of his waking hours.

He had throbbed as Christine's blinding soprano had pierced his heart, stabbing jagged edges of forbidden ecstasy into that weary, battle-scarred organ. He had scolded her, taunted her and pushed her to stretch her sweet throat further than ever before. He had grown dizzy, drunk with music, forgetting everything – even its source – for the space of a few moments.

As a reward, he had sung her a lullabye. It was a charming little Swedish tune – one that she had taught him, of all the ironies.

But now she was in his dreams. She was ragged and dirty, crying out to him. He pushed through the crowd to reach her, straw crunching under his feet. Hands clawed at him, threatening to rip off his mask. Devils screamed his most obscene desires into the black sky.

He woke up, sweating and angry. And hungry.

In a foul mood, he dressed and hurried to reach the kitchens before the Opera Populaire began to stir and search out breakfast as well.

After all, even a man who pretended to be an angel in the guise of a ghost had to eat.

* * *

Damn!

Damn all ballet teachers and gypsy ragamuffins!

Through a spyhole, he watched the pair sit cozily in front of the fire in the kitchen, eating that very bread and butter he wanted.

* * *

"Your accent is strange, Rose," Madame Giry said gently, refilling the girl's rough ceramic mug with more tea. "Where are you from?"

"I'm from Ireland, Madame," the young woman replied around a mouthful of bread and thick, creamy butter.

"Ireland?" Madame Giry exclaimed, studying the girl's features as if to trace the celtic lines in them. "However did you -?"

"End up with gypsies in France?" Rose finished, her lilting accent rolling her French around like berries in a bowl. She eagerly gulped down the warm tea, clutching at the mug with small, thin fingers. "Many strange things can happen to an elephant."

"You mean orphan," Madame Giry said with a faint smile, correcting the girl's French.

"Orphan," Rose repeated, a cautious smile spreading across her lips.

"How long have you been an orphan?" the ballet teacher asked, thinking back to the other young child she had brought to the opera house but ten years earlier.

"Five years now," Rose replied quietly, her countenance darkening in the firelight. "And it seems like just the day before, I was not alone. And now I am."

Madame Giry studied Rose. She had the perfect body for a dancer. Her frame was light but wiry, with small bones. Her bosom was small, which was good, as she would not have to bind it down. Her legs were slender but strong, with delicate ankles and high-arched feet. There was an energy to the girl, even in repose. Every movement seemed controlled, almost held back from an explosion of life and dance.

"You are no longer alone, Rose," Madame Giry said. "If you wish, you may stay here at the Opera Populaire as a dancer. I will teach you everything I know. It is a hard life, but it can be a good life if you are willing to work for it."

Rose's eyes went wide, and the fingers round the mug tightened. Madame Giry thought that the girl's eyes were grey like the cold, northern oceans she knew surrounded the green island of Ireland.

"Do you truly mean it?" Rose asked softly, her voice trembling, almost buzzing with the heady mixture of doubt, fear and hope.

"I never say things I don't mean, Rose," Madame Giry gently remonstrated.

And in the girl's silent, shaking sobs, Madame Giry had her answer.

* * *

And he had had enough, turning away from the spyhole with disgust. He knew Madame Giry would let the girl know what she was never to ask about and where never to go in his opera house.

His opera house…the phrase rolled around in his mind. His opera house, and he would give it to Christine. She would shine with happiness when she – not that obnoxious, overbearing parrot of a diva – took center stage and let her voice soar, winning the hearts of the crowd, just as she had won his. This opera house…his opera house…would be the sparkling jewel wrapped around her finger by the bands of his love.

He hurried back down to his lair, a faint line of melody having formed in his mind. It would be perfect for the ballet number of his opera!


	3. And Carthage Must be Destroyed

**_Wow! Thank you to everyone who is submitting reviews. It really means a lot to me, and it definitely inspires me to keep going, and going, and going..._**

_**-Kate**_

* * *

"Who is she, maman?"

Meg's pert, pretty little voice squeaked in Madame Giry's ear, as the pair watched the strange Irish girl struggle into her toe shoes.

"She is a new dancer that I have brought to train at the Opera Populaire, _ma fille_," Madame Giry replied. "And I expect you to help her with both her dancing…and her French."

Meg giggled and traipsed over to the girl. It was barely after breakfast and rumor had already flown through the backstage kingdom about the new acquisition by Madame Giry. The men had exchanged knowing, salacious glances, and the girls had eyed a possible rival.

Only he had remained uninterested. But then again, since he had been in on the thing, so to say, from the ground up, there was really nothing anyone could add to what he already knew.

"That is not how you tie them," Meg commented, approaching Rose.

Startled, Rose stood upright and tugged the strap of her ballet shift up. It was the best Madame Giry had been able to procure as a temporary measure, but it was slightly too big for the petite young woman.

"Have you never laced up slippers before?" Meg asked, slowing her French in case Rose did not understand.

"A few times," Rose replied softly with a shy, hesitant smile. "But I had to figure it out myself, as I had the slippers, but no one to show me."

Meg nodded, her movements for a moment hinting of the years to come when she would become more like her mother.

"We learned it by an old rhyme," Meg said with a laugh. "'_Over-under, under-over, round and round we go; tight, tight, tighter yet, and tie it with a bow_.'"

As she rattled off the rhyme, Meg knelt down and matter-of-factly rewrapped the ribbons of Rose's slippers. She stood up, and for a moment the two girls' eyes met – one set curious, one set fearful, and then in another moment, both cautiously understanding.

"Come!" Meg said gaily. "I'll introduce you to everyone – or at least as many as I can before we have to start rehearsing."

Meg grabbed Rose by the wrist and dragged her over to another group of tulle-clad fairies. Rose was immediately struck by the porcelain beauty of one of them. Dark chestnut curls were loosely pulled back, and wide brown eyes barely seemed to register the world around them. Instead, the girl seemed to be listening, to be looking for something.

"Dreamy Daae! Christine to everyone else," Meg teased, tapping her friend on the shoulder. "Wake up! This is Rose. She…arrived last night."

"Rose," the young woman said the girl's name slowly, wonderingly, tilting her head to the side.

"Mademoiselle," Rose replied, bobbing a slight curtsey.

"Don't curtsey, silly goose," Meg corrected sharply.

"Why-why not?" Rose stammered.

"Because you're one of us now," Meg said with the confidence of innocence.

* * *

He watched from far above, a dark angel of the flies. His lip curled in a spasm of pleasurable cynicism born of his innately perfect sense of music and theater.

It didn't matter how many new dancers Madame Giry brought in. The only thing that could save _Hannibal_ from being a complete and utter travesty was his Christine. She alone could bring the purity and power to the vocalizations demanded by the role.

And she was almost ready. He could taste the anticipation in the air. He would have to be even more alert than usual, be more prepared than ever. His darling's perfect opportunity might happen any day now. It was coming, as surely as old Lefevre's retirement. He would have rubbed his hands together in satisfaction, except the gloves would have made noise. Instead, he contented himself with narrowing his eyes and watching his sweet nightingale's lithe form as she began to stretch and warm-up with the other ballet rats.

He watched her movements critically for a moment, regarding her as a teacher regards his pupil. Decidedly, she was not made to be a dancer. She was passable – Madame Giry had made sure of that. But it was not her true talent.

Her slender limbs bent and stretched, the line of her neck elongating like a swan as she moved. Suddenly, he was no longer the teacher, but only a man. No. Not even a man. A monster, for only a monster could acknowledge his terrible deformity and in the same breath whisper his black desire.

The air high up on the flies was suddenly close and stifling. His gloved hand clenched at the rope. Ripping his eyes away from his Christine, he forced himself to watch the other dancers while he calmed himself.

Madame Giry hovered around that new dancer, making small adjustments – the tilt of her head, the crook of her fingers, even the slight curvature of her waist. He quirked an eyebrow at nobody in amusement at Madame Giry's obvious fire, burning in the discipline she drilled into the new girl.

Once again, he found himself grudgingly giving the new dancer credit. The first lesson with Madame Giry reduced girls to tears. It was almost a rite of passage. This one didn't cry. Her eyes grew harder, and her jaw tighter. But she didn't cry. He snorted softly. She had probably learned the same lesson he had – tears accomplish nothing, but determination…discipline…self-reliance…ah, now there was power.

He was jerked out of his reverie by the sight of Madame Giry moving over to Monsieur Reyer. The two share a few whispers, and it was evident from the surprise, consternation and confusion on the concert-master's face that Madame Giry was asking something most unorthodox. It was equally evident that Madame Giry meant to have her way.

Silently, he leaned forward to gain a better view of the full stage.

"Mademoiselle Rose," Madame Giry called out. "Come forward, please."

Meg gave the frozen girl a none-so-gentle push, setting her in motion. Cautiously, she approached Madame Giry, who stood at the front of the stage.

"Monsieur Reyer, our concertmaster, has agreed to have the orchestra play the gypsy dance from San Giovanni's operetta," the ballet teacher explained to the girl. "You will recognize the song, as it is what you danced to yesterday."

Suddenly, Rose seemed to shrink as panic rose at the thought of having to dance before all these people. Meg watched anxiously, and he could barely keep from laughing out loud.

"You can do this," Madame Giry said lightly, smiling thinly at the girl. "And you will do this. Now then, take your place, stage right. Monsieur Reyer? When you are ready."

Rose stumbled into position, her face a frozen mask of terror. He watched and began to compose in his head the teasing "I told you so" note he would later leave for Madame Giry. He settled in – as much as he ever settled himself at ease above the catacombs – to watch the disaster unfold.


	4. Springtime

**_Merci mille fois to my reviewers. Your encouragement is helping this story zip right along from my brain to my fingers to the screen._**

**_A brief explanation of the summary - I have not decided if this will be an EC or EOW ending. I will keep playing to both possibilities until I receive a consensus from my reviewers of which pairing they would like to see in the end. How's that for an improvement on Choose Your Own Ending?_**

**_Thanks again!_**

**_-Kate_**

* * *

The violin was throaty and plaintive as the first strains of the gypsy dance solo floated out into the auditorium. The silky coo of the cello joined it in the background, harmonizing on the melody.

Rose stood silent, her head bowed, her shoulders rising and falling with her anxious breaths. He watched, a faintly cynical smile curving his lips.

The sound of the violins swelled and filled the air, surrounding everyone in a thick, sweet, circular melody. Suddenly, Rose's shoulders relaxed, and she lifted her head. Meg Giry gasped, shocked as anyone would be at such a transformation.

The girl's face was electrified, alive, full of sudden dreams and passion. Her slim form began to move, slowly at first, sliding with the gentle laughter of the violins. Her footwork was unorthodox, and he leaned forward to watch more closely, interested to see what Madame Giry had given herself to work with.

The tempo picked up, and the melody blossomed into a demanding, seductive reel. The young dancer's body barely seemed to touch the floor, so light and full of energy was her movement. Though obviously not formally trained, she instinctively worked in arabesques, toe-work and elaborate spins and leaps, bringing new life to the well-known movements with her naïve, unconstrained energy and passion.

She flung herself into the dance, her eyes closing in ecstasy as she seemed to forget her corporeal self. Passionate abandon seemed to emanate from her in undulating, unrelenting waves. There was no inhibition, no sense of right or wrong in her movements – only life…throbbing, aching, energizing life.

He watched, stunned. He felt his own body tense and relax in time with her movements, as if she pulled the spirits of everyone around her into her private delirium. There was no shyness, no doubt, no fear on the smooth young face.

When the dance finally came to a magnificent, soaring end, she stood proudly, breathless with shining eyes. The jaded choristers and stagehands erupted into spontaneous applause.

He felt himself grudgingly nod in approval. She was raw. It would take all of Madame Giry's skill to shape her, but…he had to admit that the girl was good. Better than good. She was the passion of primeval dance itself, the pulse of life expressed through movement. He watched in a kind of neutral, suspended judgment as Madame Giry went over to the girl. He frowned, watching as she seemed to shrink back into some small, quiet, insignificant creature.

Madame Giry wasted no time and immediately began critiquing Rose's performance, making small asides about the various areas that she would have to work on with her. He withdrew further back into the shadows again.

As he moved, he saw a most unwelcome sight. The mottled, flushed face of Joseph Buquet peering into the darkness. His jaw tightened in anger. The man was a nuisance of the first order. And he had the potential to be worse…much worse.

Only the soft syllables spilling from his angel's lips distracted him from snapping that man's neck and being done with him. His rage subsided like white foam slipping back into the sea as he bent his ear to catch every nuance of her sweetness, like dew beads on a rose.

"You were wonderful!" Christine exclaimed, smiling shyly at the quiet girl who once again stood small and quiet among the sisterhood of dancers.

"Thank you," Rose replied softly, unable to keep two pink spots of pleasure from burning in her thin cheeks.

"Where did you learn to dance?" Christine asked, making an effort to reach out to the girl for the sake of kind Madame Giry and Meg.

Rose's face softened with a shade of sadness – a wistfulness that Christine instinctively felt she understood.

"I danced all my life in Ireland," Rose said. "We would dance with the fiddlers and pipers playing. You would just feel it and have to dance. I mean you feel it move your stomach."

Christine and Meg exchanged puzzled glances, then Meg suddenly burst into giggles.

"Oh!" she said, "you mean you feel it in your gut!"

Rose laughed at herself, a soft alto laugh in a heavenly trio with Christine's soprano and Meg's trill.

And he had to admit to himself that dancers _could_ make music sometimes.


	5. Gits, Ghosts and Goats

It had been a week.

Rose lay on her narrow bed, listening to the soft breathing of the little girls around her. There were no private rooms to spare, so Madame Giry had put her in the little girls' dormitory.

In the grey light before dawn, Rose lay still on her bed and cast her mind back over the week she had just lived. She had awakened on a grey morning like this a mere seven days ago. But she had seen the light of morning through the bars of a cage. She had felt the empty pit of her stomach, the cold of the damp air through thin rags, and the aching of her bruised ribs.

Seven days later, she was warm and well-fed. She had a dress – and had been delighted to learn it was one of dear Meg's old ones that she had outgrown. But it was clean and whole and even had a little bit of lace on it. She had shoes for her feet, stockings for her legs and pins for her hair.

And for the first time in five years, she had hope. She had a future, a path, a plan. She had someone who cared what happened to her.

Her natural feistiness and buoyancy had kept her from sinking into the icy blackness of despair's midnight ocean, even with the foul tentacles of suffering and sin reaching up to pull her under. She sensed the hurt and the anguish that still roiled beneath the surface of her heart. But those were emotions for people with the luxury of time and money. She had a future to build.

Casting her mind back over the week, Rose felt that it was almost a dream. It was as if she had been living in a nightmare, numbly stumbling through existence, kept in a perpetual state of shock and limply hoping to wake up. The nightmare had receded, changed into a lovely dream, and now, Rose felt like she was on the verge of waking up. And she knew that she would awaken to this reality, this new life she had.

There were definitely challenges in this new life. Her training as a dancer was rigorous, and her body ached from practice. And there was that odious man, Joseph Buquet. He smelled of cheap wine and old sweat – even the memory of how close he had come to her made Rose feel vaguely nauseous. His smile was worse than his smell, though. His smile had suggested all sorts of things. Things that made Rose think of the gypsies.

With a sharp intake of breath, she banished Joseph Buquet from her thoughts, recalling pleasant images of Meg and Christine to soothe her. The girls had befriended her with a sweetness and ease that made Rose almost believe they were guardian angels in disguise.

Suddenly, Rose sat bolt upright in bed, her small mouth hanging open in shock.

How was it that a week had passed and she had not even thought to ask Madame Giry about the man who had actually rescued her from the gypsies.

Rose realized she hadn't seen the man's face or heard his name. And she hadn't thanked him. How horrible! How ungrateful she must seem!

Well, she would make amends.

But her opportunity to ask Madame Giry never arrived that day. Monsieur Lefevre had announced his retirement, two new managers had been introduced, half the chorus had fainted at the sight of the handsome new patron, La Carlotta had stormed off, and her dearest friend Christine had been given the chance of a lifetime. Oh, and Joseph Buquet had been raked across the coals for letting the backdrop fall on La Carlotta. Rose had felt an immense, if childish, pleasure in that.

* * *

He felt a delicious tension in the air, the sweetness of the utter precision with which he pulled all the strings in this pitiful puppet show. He had played the moment with perfect pitch, with Madame Giry acting right on cue. And, he had gotten Joseph Buquet in trouble. He had felt an immense, if childish, pleasure in that.

And his Christine – oh how beautiful she was! How perfect in her pristine innocence, how sublime in her singing. His heart was utterly full, and tears would have welled up in his eyes if he hadn't shed them all so many years ago. She had fulfilled every expectation of his, rising to the occasion and soaring above the feeble limits of La Carlotta and Piangi.

He smiled softly to himself. Tonight, he would reward her…he would reward them both. He felt his body would burst into flames and blow away like ash on the wind if he was apart from her any longer. Tonight, she would see her angel, touch him, feel the glory of the music he could give her. He would wrap her in his heart, singing strings of love to bind her to him. And together…together…the future would be glorious.

With a satisfied air, he slipped back down from the flies and into the shadows of the garret above the chandelier. He could not resist though, stepping out through the door just one more time onto the painted balcony that ran around the inside of the domed ceiling. Her voice was purest up here, bouncing off the walls and almost striking him forcefully as it echoed the final notes of the aria. Then, with a subtle swirl of his cape, he had disappeared back into the labyrinth of corridors and secret passages.

* * *

Well, it would seem she wouldn't have to ask Madame Giry after all.

Rose easily slipped away in the chaos that reigned during Christine's shatteringly beautiful performance. Her nimble athleticism enabled her to fairly fly through the trapeze of flies and catwalks to where she had last seen the cloaked man. Her speed was rewarded by the sight of a dark cape slipping behind a door.

She leaped across the room and caught the door before it shut, hurtling through it in unheeding haste to reach her rescuer. Once on the other side of the door, however, she stopped in her tracks.

He was nowhere to be seen. Rose strained her eyes in the darkness but could see nothing.

"Hello?" she called out softly, forgetting to use her French and speaking in low, lilting English. "Please, I only wanted to…"

Her words were cut off by a pair of hands clamped around her shoulders that spun her around and pinned her to the wall. An eerie half-face loomed in her vision, so close that they were almost nose-to-nose. In the shadows that were sliced by shafts of light from the chinks in the wall boards, all Rose could see were a pair of enraged green eyes locked on hers.

But even if she couldn't _see_ her assailant, she could smell the exotic spice that clung to his fine velvet lapels; she could feel the heat of his breath on her skin; and, she could sense his dizzying, towering, menacing presence.

"What did you want?" he hissed, his voice no more than an indistinct growl from between his clenched teeth.

"I…I…" Rose stammered, her heart pounding like a trip hammer in her chest. She was frightened, but in a way far different than she had been frightened while slaving away for the gypsies.

In her peripheral vision, she saw the man's lips twist in a sneer, and her temper suddenly flared at the unreasonableness he was displaying.

"Now, you quit that!" Rose snapped, grabbing hold of his wrists and thrusting her body at him with all her force. The man was forced to step back to keep from falling, which allowed Rose to spin and twist out of his grip.

Instantly, he drew back into the shadows, but her hand shot out again and grabbed his wrist.

"You're being a silly git – and rude, to boot!" Rose spat out in rolling, lilting English, her anger making her forget all the rudimentary French she had command of. "Here I am, racin' up here like a daft billy goat to say thank you, and you act like a perfect arse to me! Now stand still and let me say thank you!"

The man in the shadows didn't move, but Rose could feel the tension in his body. His anger seemed to seep into the very pores of her fingers that were still inexorably wrapped around his own strong wrists.

"Now then," Rose said, taking a deep breath and trying to speak French again. "All I wanted to say is thank you for saving me from…from them."

She released his wrist and stepped back herself.

"That's all I wanted," she whispered.

And before her heart could beat thrice more, he was gone.


	6. The Dregs of Humanity

**_To all those who are submitting reviews, thank you, thank you, thank you!_**

**_This story is just flying from my fingertips, and it's thanks to your kind words of encouragement. And it seems that Rose is edging out Christine in the voting...but it's a pity he doesn't realize that yet...evil laugh_**

**_-Kate_**

* * *

Rage! Insult! Anger! Hate! Murder!

He was dizzy with the thick, viscous red rage that engulfed him, pulsing before his eyes and choking his very breath. She had followed him! She had touched him! He hated her! Hated her! He would kill her!

He had reminded her of them! He hated them! He would gladly kill every last one of them! They were the ones who hurt him! They beat him!

The delirious rant in his mind spiraled out of control as he fled into the innermost recesses of the catacombs. He tore into the sanctuary of his dark lair, desperately looking around him as if the familiarity of the objects in his "home" could anchor him back in reality.

He hated her!

But the passion was ebbing somewhat now. He stood before his organ, his shoulders rising and falling as he panted and tried to regain control of himself.

Suddenly, he felt weak and hollow, and so very, very alone. _Bon Dieu_! He was so lonely that his heart would break, were it not already crushed to a thousand pieces beneath the heels of the world. Oh Christine! If only she would scoop the fragments up on her slender, white hands, the very warmth of her eyes would bring him back to life.

He sank onto the stool before his beloved pipe organ, the only mistress he had ever dared caress. He felt his body trembling, but for once, he did not try to check it. He wanted to be alive to all his emotions tonight. He would call forth everything in his heart and soul and lay it all before Christine's tiny, perfect feet.

His thoughts grew calmer at the soothing balm that his angel always brought to him. At last, he considered himself sufficiently under control to turn his mind to what had just happened.

There was a stab of anger, but it was not the all-consuming mad rage of a few moments ago. No, there was simply planning that had to be done.

Madame Giry would have to be reminded that even her protégée was not exempt from his rules. The girl had already crossed the line once –

His fingers spasmodically clutched at the ivory keys, sending a dissonant shout echoing into the cavern as he remembered that she had touched him.

Even now, his heart raced at the memory. He had been utterly surprised at the sheer strength of the girl's grip. It was not the lazy, laconic grasp of a ballerina. It was something else…

She had touched him.

Her fingers had curled around his wrist. He thanked whatever small mercy God chose to show him that the cuff of his fine linen shirt had remained between her skin and his. He winced at the thought of how close he had come to flinching when she had touched him.

A flinch was not a mysterious movement. It was a movement of weakness, a clue, a bread crumb on a deadly trail to his identity, the truth of his existence.

Damn!

He jumped up from the stool and paced back and forth before the organ, growling like a caged animal.

She had spoken of _them_. The gypsies…or, the godless bastards as he preferred to call them. He remembered what he had suffered at their hands. It was all there in her voice – the slight hesitation, as if to actually speak of them was to risk returning them to her reality. That hated hush in her voice was too painfully familiar to him. He knew what she had endured.

He stopped in his steps. Into his mind flashed the line of her jaw, the delicacy of her shoulders, the seriousness of her deep grey eyes. He swallowed hard. She had been a defenseless young woman among the gypsies, a tantalizing new blossom unfurling before them.

No wonder she had fought him and pushed him away when he had pinned her to the wall.

No, he realized in a moment of both anger and shame. He knew only the smallest part of what she had endured at their hands.

But it didn't make him hate her any less.

She had better stay out of his way. Giry would have to be told. And God help any of the fools if they interfered with tonight!

Tonight was not for godless bastards, ill-used dancers, nosey stagehands, feckless managers, or even tightly-wound ballet teachers.

Tonight was for his angel.

And tonight, his angel would come for him.


	7. No Cape!

"Christine?"

The chestnut-haired beauty looked up at Rose, her gaze dazed and distraught.

"I won't ask if you're all right, because, well, it's pretty clear you're not," Rose said, stumbling over her words in French. "But, well, if you ever just want to talk to someone who will just listen, I'm here."

Christine gave Rose a watery smile. She tentatively reached out and took the small dancer's hand in her own, long, elegant fingers.

The two young women stood for a moment in the fragrant silence of Christine's dressing room. Rose knew all the rumors that surrounded the young diva's disappearance and reappearance. She had heard about a ghost, a lover, a teacher, a vicomte, a plot…oh, the variations on speculation had been endless – and involved a lot of slang that she had quickly picked up.

"If only I could tell you," Christine whispered plaintively. "But the Angel of Music…he…he knows everything. He sees everything!"

Rose snorted and grinned, "Sounds more like a Peeping Tom of Music than an angel."

Christine shook her head, her eyes still wide and frightened. "No, no, he would never spy on me like _that_!" she remonstrated.

Rose quirked an eyebrow, biting her tongue to keep from disabusing Christine about the inclinations of men.

"You're fortunate to have such a tutor," she ventured instead, her eyes involuntarily flitting around the room, trying to discern where any spyholes might be hidden. But instantly, her attention was drawn back to the willowy figure seated before her. Christine had actually shuddered.

"Oh, you don't know! You don't know!" Christine wailed softly, burying her face in her hands. "I do not know what to do!"

Genuinely alarmed, Rose bent over her friend and wrapped her arms around her, letting Christine shake within the safety of her grip.

"Christine, what is it?" Rose whispered, squeezing her tightly. "What is it I don't know?"

Christine looked up at the slender dancer with agony in her eyes.

"My angel is a devil!" she whispered.

Rose's concerned expression instantly turned to one of sardonic amusement. "Now, Christine, lass, calm down," she said, dipping into her Irish for a bit of lilting practicality. "He's a man. Just a man."

Christine shook her head, her trembling growing more violent. Rose's lips pressed into a thin line. This wouldn't do. The girl was due on stage in less than half an hour. Hysterics now would ruin her make-up and exacerbate an already tempestuous and tense situation backstage.

"Christine, girl," Rose said, taking her by the shoulders and looking her squarely in the eyes. "He's a man. Human. Not an angel or a devil. He's a flesh and blood man."

Christine trembled but held her gaze with the innocent trust of a child.

"I've seen him," Rose added with a crooked smile that crinkled up her grey eyes and made her serious face seem sweeter and more youthful.

"You have?" Christine squeaked in a frightened little cry.

Rose nodded and full-out grinned.

"Aye," she replied with a careless laugh. "I chased him up through a passage and even spoke to him."

Christine eyed Rose as if the girl had suddenly grown two heads.

"And I hope he's listenin'," Rose added, chucking Christine under the chin. "Because he needs to know that his manners are abominable, and he really should get rid of the cape if he's going to go sneakin' around – after all, what does he think he's about, twirlin' that silly cloak everywhere. He's _inside_, and it never rains inside. And frankly, that little melodramatic swish of the cape is what gave him to me."

"You mean what gave him away," Christine corrected automatically, but Rose's words had started to have an effect. Her shoulders relaxed, and some color came back into her cheeks. She even managed to smile a bit.

"Right," Rose laughed, acknowledging her still faulty French. "Now, lass, you think you'll be okay to go perform tonight?"

Christine nodded, taking a deep breath and smiling a little more bravely.

"Good," Rose said, patting her shoulder. "Because now I have to go warm up or Madame Giry will have my head!"

_

* * *

If only we were so lucky, he thought bitterly behind the mirror as he watched the twiggy little dancer leave the room. He had almost forgotten about her in the intervening weeks since her arrival. But now, he was powerfully reminded of just how much he hated her._

How dare she try to disabuse his precious Christine of the mystique he had so carefully crafted! Didn't she know what was at stake? His happiness, the very beating of his heart depended on continuing to hold Christine in the thrall of his mysteriousness.

True, he mused as he slipped away from the mirror and made his way toward the secret staircase that went up to the catwalks, Christine had seen his face. That had shattered the illusion of the _handsome_, mysterious angel. But, he felt fairly certain that the beauty of his voice and the sheer enormity of his love for her had faded that terrible image from her eyes.

He snorted and grimaced as he lightly trod on the flies, his cloak swirling behind him. He amused himself with the image of wrapping that cloak around the dancing chit's head and smothering her with it. He felt a pleasant wave of dark amusement at his own perfect sense of black humor. It would serve her right for talking about things she shouldn't. He sighed, then, knowing he wouldn't harm her for the sake of Madame Giry. That irritating little dancer was safe for the moment, unless she crossed the line beyond the point of no return.

A muffled protest drew his keen eyes into the shadows. His jaw tightened. It would seem that the little dancer wasn't quite as safe as he thought.

Joseph Buquet held the girl by the throat, pinning her against the rough boards of the catwalk. She clawed and kicked, but he could see that she was growing weak from the choking hands around her neck. And he could also see the evil intentions in Joseph Buquet's lewd movements as he pressed himself on top of her.

What had she been doing up there in the first place? The thought flashed through his mind, but a red mist of rage pushed it aside. Joseph Buquet was no better than _them_, the godless bastards. How dare he lay hands on Madame Giry's protégée? How dare he give lie to her words that the girl was safe now? How dare Joseph Buquet put the girl exactly back in the position that he himself had risked so much to rescue her from?

Suddenly, everything resolved into a cool, clear reasoning that stated it would be quite right to serve this man out by killing him. It would end a nagging problem for him, it would end a…an unpleasant problem for the dancer…and it would also clear the way to handle a much more competent stagehand. Yes, all around, it was a good decision.

With icy deliberation, he stepped from the utter darkness into the lighter shadows, allowing his footfalls to be heard. Instantly, Joseph Buquet paused and looked up, peering around the flies. Suddenly, he spied the black, spectral figure, and his body tensed. The dancer gasped and clutched at the hands that were still around her throat, weakly plucking at them, trying to pull them off.

He didn't move, and in the end, it was the perfect stillness that frightened Joseph Buquet off of the girl – but not before he left a warning for her in the form of his fist crashing into her delicate cheek. The stagehand staggered over the now-still body of the dancer and into the shadows to catch the elusive "opera ghost."

It was all over very quickly. The Punjab Lasso was such an admirable tool, he never failed to admire its silence, speed and efficacy. He left the body of Joseph Buquet lying hidden in a corner of the black catwalk – he had plans for it, but first things first.

He made his way over to the unconscious dancer who lay on the flies like a butterfly caught in a spider's web. Silently, he knelt next to her. He didn't touch her to feel her pulse, but was satisfied to see the slight rise and fall of her chest. That bastard had pulled her skirts up with his obscene efforts, and now, very gently, he lowered them back down. He saw the angry bruise forming on the girl's face and absently thought it would take quite a bit of make-up to cover it up for the performance.

The performance! The thought of it suddenly snapped him back into action. Gritting his teeth, he scooped the dancer into his arms, surprised at how light she was given what he knew of her strength. He tried his best to keep at bay the memories of the sweet feeling of holding Christine in his arms like that. Only once had he done that, when she had fainted.

_Must a woman always be unconscious to be in my arms?_ he thought to himself with his characteristic sardonic bitterness. He slipped into the passageway between the walls and headed down the small staircase to the dressing rooms.

Warm! Soft! So close! His body and his heart ached together just at the feeling of contact with another human being. He scowled viciously as he hurried through the secret passages. He would have to leave her in Madame Giry's rooms – everywhere else was full of pre-performance chaos.

He slid into the ballet mistress' dressing room and gently deposited the dancer on the divan. But the shifting of positions unfortunately stirred her, and her eyes flew open, alarm and panic suddenly blooming on her features as she stared out into nothingness, trying to understand where her assailant had gone.

He pressed his gloved hand over her mouth to keep her from crying out and giving him away. Damn her! He fumed but patiently kept the pressure gentle.

"Don't make a sound," he growled in her ear as he crouched behind her. He felt her relax in his grip and removed his hand. Her breathing had returned to normal, and it was clear she had guessed she was safe now. Grudgingly, he admired how quickly she composed herself – knowing the price one paid for such a survival instinct.

"Thank you," she said softly, starting to turn around to look at him. His hands grabbed her shoulders and forced her back to looking straight out in front of her instead of back at him.

Then, he straightened up and silently crossed the room to the still-open secret wall panel.

"And I'm sorry," she called out to the air in front of her. His steps deeper into the passage arrested out of insatiable puzzlement. What was she sorry for? She was the victim. She had nothing to be sorry for.

"I'm sorry I made fun of your cape earlier," she said.

And Rose swore that she heard a grating, bitter shout of laughter from the other side of the silent wall.

* * *

**_Thanks again to all my reviewers! You really make all the difference to me!_**

**_Oh, and I couldn't resist a little nod to the best line from "The Incredibles" for the chapter title. I hope you will forgive me. _**

**_-Kate_**


	8. Breath and Sand

It was midnight. Almost everyone who should have been asleep was. A few corners were occupied by lovers and their soft moans. And a small, solitary figure stood alone in the ballet studio, the moonlight pouring in through the great, high windows and casting oblong blocks of light onto the floor.

Everything was silent. But the slight figure shed the limp cotton robe it wore and took a place in the middle of the floor. Silvery moonlight made her white ballet costume glow with a ghostly radiance, and the icy light reflected in the deep grey pools of her eyes.

She had been restless, unable to sleep, her light dreams plagued by the image of Joseph Buquet's body swinging before her eyes, blocking her sight of the audience as she tried to dance away the tension of La Carlotta's now-infamous "croaking."

She alone hadn't screamed when his body had dropped into the middle of the dance. No, she had been frozen with a sudden, terrifying knowledge of exactly what had happened to him, who had done it, and what the reason was. Everyone had called the phantom of the opera a bloody ghost, a murderer. She had been torn. If she told everyone the true reason of what had happened, the phantom would lose his mystique but he would be exonerated. If she said nothing, he would remain branded a murderer, but his power would be undiminished.

In the end, she had remained silent.

Two months of silent torment for her had passed. Not a note, not a shadow, not the slightest sign of the phantom had manifested itself. People began to cautiously whisper that he was gone, that the death of Joseph Buquet was the end of the époque of the opera ghost.

She knew better. In her cynical, superstitious Irish heart, Rose knew that he was only biding his time. A man that loved as he loved Christine – for she had learned more and more of the story from her friend – did not give up that easily. No matter what lay under the mask. And she knew that somehow, she would be caught in the web he was weaving. After all, she now owed him twice over. It was a debt that weighed heavily on her thin shoulders.

Tonight, Rose wanted to exhaust herself until her body simply collapsed from physical exertion, and dancing was the only way she had available to her now. When she had been orphaned, everyone in the village had admired the seemingly endless energy she had shown in working to pack up and disperse her family's little cottage. But now, all that she had was dance to release those demons of fear and grief inside her.

There was no music, but she needed none. All she needed was the beating of her own heart to keep time with. She did not need to imagine footlights or applause. Unlike Christine and Meg, there was no thrill for her in dancing for others. She danced because she had to. Where words failed her and language was weak, movement spoke for her.

She struck a pose – a traditional, flamenco-style pose that she had seen other gypsy dancers use. Her slippered feet slid across the floor with only a slight scuffing as she slowly began to bend and turn her body. The movements were achingly slow and sensuous, a blend of sheer muscular strength and the delicacy of artistic sensibility.

Without thinking, she used ballet movements to soften the sometimes raunchier edges of the dances she had learned from the gypsies. And yet, the raw desire of their dance and the unrestrained life of her native Irish dancing flowed together in a desperate reel that was terrifyingly beautiful.

She flung herself harder and faster into the dance now, as if the silent instruments had picked up the tempo. She leaped, twirled and bent herself uncaringly, seeming only to want to push every nerve, every sinew in her lithe form to its outermost limit.

But as she danced, her harsh breathing keeping time in the air, he watched her.

It was one of the rare moments he had surfaced from his labyrinth. He had immured himself in his musical tomb, writing like the madman he was, trying to finish his opera. Making his own music was the only way he could drown out the sound of Christine's voice as she had softly whispered her love to that insipid boy-noble!

Damn them!

His hand had cramped up painfully, and he knew he had hit a wall with the flamenco number he was composing. He had allowed himself to come up to the ballet practice room to see if the sight of a broad, open space would inspire him again.

He was actually surprised to find it was night. He could have sworn it would have been dawn. But then, he was not overly concerned about it. Time had so very little meaning, especially now that he was no longer paying attention to the comings and goings of his managers, cast and crew. He would once again master their every movement when it was time for him to reappear and triumphantly offer up his opera as the burnt offering of his heart for Christine.

These thoughts flitted lightly through his agile mind as he watched the dancer, Rose, in her silent, agonized, impassioned dance.

Seen one ballet tart, seen them all.

And yet, he knew the moment he tried to form the words of that platitude that it was not true. No ballet tart would care so little for an audience that she would dance by herself in the moonlight. No ballet tart would push herself artistically and physically with such unrelenting rigor. No ballet tart would put so much raw, yet naïve passion and desire into her dance when it could serve her better backstage or in the manager's office.

No, Rose was no ballet tart.

As he watched her, he felt those strange, forbidden stirrings in his body that he had only felt in the intoxicating presence of his angel. Her dance was innocent yet seductive. He couldn't deny the erotic quality of the moment – the unrestrained vigor of her dance, her hard, quick breaths in the air, the sight of her slender body bending and stretching.

No, he couldn't deny it, nor did he try to. He had often witnessed what he considered mildly erotic moments between the cast and crew. What really bothered him, though, was that he had been able to dismiss it with his steel-plated cynicism. This…this dancer was erotic in her very innocence.

He hated her in principle for so many reasons – she had this uncanny habit of undoing his spells on Christine with a bit of backchat and mocking of his own person; she knew more about his true existence than anyone except Madame Giry…even Christine was thankfully still confused about him; and, he hated her above all because she knew too much of what he had suffered, even if she only knew from her own experience.

Yet, at the moment of midnight, under the spell of moonlight and the soft, sandy rhythm of her dance slippers against the floor, he found his mind thick and cotton-like when he tried to summon his useful hate.

To the utter horror of his rational, self-protective side, he impulsively and silently darted out from his hiding place in the shadows, catching the full weight of her body as she spun around and threw herself forward as if in a lunge.

There was a beat of complete silence as they warily regarded each other in the shadows and moonlight. He felt the shiver of inspiration run along his spine – that one familiar sensation of pleasure when he knew that the magic of creation was upon him.

In the very next beat, Rose had taken him by the hand and had drawn him into an intricate step sequence. He quickly recognized the step as one that gypsies favored in their reels and rounds, and though he had never practiced it, he was able to use his native agility and quickness to pick it up.

Knowing the relative pattern of the dance left him free to concentrate on other things – things like the uncanny sensation of her eyes locked on his. Grey into green, he felt himself being pulled by the sheer force of her slight being as she asserted herself as a powerful, otherworldly creature of dance. It was thrilling and risky and frightening to him to hold the gaze of someone who knew so much and yet still so little of him.

He sought to capture and memorize the sensation of her warm little hands in his. He felt himself on fire in every nerve ending with the anticipation of the next steps in the dance. It was a series of spins, each of which ended with an increasingly tighter, more intimate embrace between the partners.

Oh, what was he doing? What was he thinking? The rational side of his mind wailed at his lack of caution, reminding him bitterly of how his broken heart could stand no more. Yet, this was a new experience for him. He had been utterly consumed by music, by notes, by all that could be heard.

In this dance, he began to learn the passion of what could be _felt_. He could feel his heart pounding in a ragged, urgent rhythm. He could feel the burning of the air within his lungs. He could sense the currents of the air as they swirled it with their movements. He could feel the dizziness of a woman's body thrown against his again and again with exquisite delicacy and control. He could smell the faint salty muskiness of her sweat and his.

This was magnificent! This was what his music had been missing! He felt rejuvenated, inspired, powerful again. He asserted himself in the dance, using his grace and strength to challenge Rose to be lighter and stronger. He glowed inwardly as he saw the comprehension, acceptance and delight at the challenge in her eyes.

Together, with only the sounds of their breaths and their soles against the floor, they danced. Spinning, lifting, leaping, lunging, bending, dipping and throwing. He grew almost drunk with the feeling of it all, reveling in his strength as he seemingly effortlessly lifted Rose into the air, his hands instinctively braced on her slender hips. He loved the sensation of being able to feel her muscles tense or stretch in his grasp, the way she responded perfectly to every move he made.

Finally, in a dizzying, whirling moment, the dance came to an end. She was held in his arms as he dipped her. They stayed that way for a few moments, panting to catch their breaths. He started to straighten up, but he noticed she seemed ready to sink to the floor in exhaustion. He suddenly realized why she had been dancing, and he felt a stabbing of unreasoning rage aimed at no one in particular except everyone.

He bent down and swung her into his arms, gritting his teeth against her gentle weight that felt still warm from dancing. Silently, he carried her from the cold, empty ballet practice room and up several flights of stairs to the prop room. He gently deposited her on the ornately gilt divan that had been used in _Il Mutto_.

Her eyes had remained closed the entire time, and he suspected that she had fallen asleep. He noted that her expression, which had been pained and impassioned while dancing, had faded to a vague frown between her brows.

Cursing himself, he covered her up with one of the cheap velveteen blankets that had been used as bed coverings in the performance and winced as she snuggled into it, still frowning.

Unable to help himself, he gently touched her forehead, using his thumb to rub and smooth out the furrow between her eyes. He nearly choked on his own self-loathing as she relaxed and seemed to almost smile at his touch.

Abruptly he rose. It was time to go back. He had his inspiration now for the rest of the flamenco. He only cast one look back at the sleeping dancer.

It was a pity she couldn't sing.


	9. The Madonna of the Rocks

Rose felt sick as she watched him descend the sweeping staircase. In the half-shadows, he appeared to be preternaturally tall, a bloody figure dressed in red with the mask of black death over his face. The very air around him seemed to push people away from his orbit.

What was he doing? What was he thinking? And, why oh why didn't Christine run?

In her makeshift costume hastily borrowed from the opera wardrobe, Rose shivered at his measured, heavy step – it was as if he sought to affirm just how real he was with such firm footfalls. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Raoul slink off, but her head was pounding too hard to reason through the possibilities of what he might be thinking of doing.

The sneer in his voice chilled Rose as she listened to him announce the completion of his opera. In the semi-darkness, Rose strained to find the face of Madame Giry. But it was impossible to discern anyone's identity behind the dim glittering of sequined and beaded masks.

"Do something, do something, do something!"

Over and over, the mantra throbbed in her head. She had to help Christine. But her nimble dancer's feet that had been so lively and light just a moment before seemed glued to the spot.

She gasped along with everyone else when he viciously pulled the chain from around Christine's neck, and the look of pain in the girl's sweet doe eyes was almost more than Rose could bear.

However, when he disappeared in a puff of smoke into the hole in the floor, Rose didn't scream. She knew the secrets of too many magic tricks to be frightened witless by smoke, capes and confetti.

Finally, as the lights went up again, she caught sight of Meg Giry rushing towards Christine and hastened that way herself.

"Raoul! Oh Raoul!" Christine cried softly, staring at the starburst pattern in the floor.

"What do you mean?" Rose asked urgently.

"Raoul jumped into that hole after the phantom!" Meg explained, wrapping her arms around the shaking Christine.

Rose frowned, she must have missed that. But, she was filled with a sense of tension, as if she alone saw a moment that balanced on the knife's edge. She had to do something. She simply had no other choice.

"Stay by her side and don't leave her, Meg," Rose whispered. "If I am not back by morning…tell your mother."

Meg stared at Rose, her expression that of someone overwhelmed by too much mystery and too much shock. Rose offered her a quick, crooked smile, then took off at a run back towards the backstage entrance to the empty auditorium.

* * *

As she ran, Rose cursed the jolting bounce of the white feathery wings on the back of her costume. But the cherub wings from Christine's aria in _Hannibal_ were all she could get her hands on before the ball. She entered the silent auditorium and climbed up on the stage. Dimly, the ruckus of the chorus and crew party reached her. But she paid no heed to it. Instead, she kicked off the delicate silver dance shoes she had borrowed from the costume department, gathered up her filmy silver skirts and charged up the narrow, squeaking staircase to the domed ceiling.

Without losing a beat, Rose went through the two doors into the passage where she had run into him months ago. It was completely dark, and she had forgotten to bring a candle. But she was too far along to think about going back.

Her reasoning was that he must have been using this passage to retreat back to wherever he hid within the opera house. If she followed it, she would find him. Why she wanted to find him, and what exactly she was going to say when she did were still a mystery.

However, given how long it seemed she wended her way through narrow corridors and down rickety stairs, it appeared she'd have plenty of time to figure it all out.

Rose lost track of the minutes, keeping time only by the anxious pounding of her heart. Her feet grew cold and sore from the rough stone floors she now silently felt her way along. She was sure that she was underground at this point. The air had changed from simply musty to heavy and damp.

Her hair clung to her forehead in damp little curling tendrils, and she felt her fingers begin to ache as the cold seeped into them as well. But she pressed on, driven by a near-frantic need to stop whatever chain of events she instinctively felt was now beginning to rapidly play out.

Her rapidly dwindling hope was renewed by the sight of the lake. It was as Christine had described it – emerald green with a faint mist swirling on it. But to her amazement, Rose found that she had taken a path that did not require that she navigate its waters. She had emerged from the labyrinth on a small ledge high above the lake. The path lead downwards and seemed to disappear into a dark corner of rock – but Rose felt sure that somehow, it emerged into his lair – the lair she could see light spilling from on the other side of the portcullis.

Eagerly, she hurried down the path and found that if she slid herself sideways, she could just pass between the rocks. And then, she found herself inside his…home?

For a moment, she stood, frozen, watching him as he paced back and forth before some sort of chaotic desk area. Still wearing the black mask of his costume, he savagely pulled off his coat and flung it angrily aside. He loosened his cravat, throwing it to the ground with equal force. One hand seemed to be closed in a fist, but Rose thought she saw the telltale sparkle of a golden chain.

And then, as if he sensed her presence, he looked up. There was a moment of utter astonishment on his part, mixed with disbelief. It was as if he was trying to decide if it truly was an angel come down to him, or if it was the very devil herself.

What little was visible of his face suddenly twisted in an angry, fearful sneer, and he started to cross his domain in quick, broad, athletic strides.

Suddenly fearing for her life, Rose took a quick step forward, her hands extended out in front of her in a conciliatory gesture. She got as far as "Wait!" when she saw the suddenly horrified expression on his face.

It was all so fast, Rose wasn't quite sure what had happened. In the blink of an eye, the only thing she knew was that there was a rope around her neck that was quickly choking the life out of her. She was only vaguely aware of rushing bootsteps.

"Survive!" Instinct rose up and asserted itself. She reached up and wrapped her hand around the rope from which she dangled. Then, using all her strength, she pulled herself up so that the rope around her neck loosened a fraction, enough for her to get a gasp of air into her lungs.

She wasn't sure how long she could hold herself up like that, but suddenly, he was at her side. There was a metallic flash before her eyes, and then it was all over.

The rope fell slackly around her neck as she collapsed into his arms, choking, shaking and clawing at the noose. Deftly, he pocketed the small silver knife, removed the noose and tossed it aside. Then, he roughly pulled her to her feet and grabbed her by the shoulders.

"What do you think you are doing?" he said in a terrible voice, shaking her hard until her head bobbled back and forth.

"Stop it!" Rose choked out, clutching at her pounding head with her hands. "Shaking me isn't going to undo anything, now is it?"

He stopped shaking her, more out of sheer surprise at her response than anything. He had expected her to be angry. He had thought she'd be fearful. Fear and anger were his bosom companions, and he knew well how to play them like some fine instrument.

But she didn't seem frightened or angry. Irritated, yes. And he was forced to admit that he had very little idea how to intimidate someone who was only irritated.

Rose glared at him and shook her head.

"What do you think you're doing?" she said crisply, trying to push her fear deeper within her.

He stared at her as she reprimanded him with the same words he had used on her.

"Visitors," he said, letting his voice grow cold and slick with that word, "are not welcome here."

"No!" Rose drawled sarcastically, leaning back against the cave wall. "And here I thought we'd sit and have some tea!"

This was decidedly…irritating, he realized. He was reminded all over again why he hated her. Like him, she wasn't easy to scare. And like him, she used her wits to fight. Damn her!

"What do you want?" he asked coldly, making one last attempt at intimidation by coming to stand directly in front of her, towering over her slight form, his shadow making a somber stain on the silver of her angel costume.

"I want you to come to your bloody senses," Rose said, her voice hoarse from the damage done to her throat by the rope. "This won't work, you know. The opera. It'll only drive her further away. And maybe she was never yours to begin wi-"

Her words were cut off again by the rush of his rage as he grabbed her and swung her hard as if to fling her off the narrow ledge and send her flying into the rocky lagoon. Only her death grip on his shirt kept him from tossing her away.

With a suppressed roar, he threw her to the ground and put his face right up to hers.

"You," he spat, his eyes narrowed, "know nothing!"

"No, it's you who knows nothing!" Rose retorted, refusing to be intimidated by the proximity of his masked face. Her temper flared, and she paid him back with his own game, sitting up and putting her face up against his, forcing him to back up or suffer the intimacy.

Rose scrambled to her feet as he rose to his in a quick, fluid motion.

"Get out," he snarled, feeling like if he wasn't so tired, he would have cheerfully finished the job of the Punjab Lasso. He turned and began to walk back down the path. He was just exhausted. He wanted to take off his mask and climb into bed, praying for either sleep or death to come and take him.

"I will not," Rose replied calmly.

He spun on his heel and looked up at her. For a brief moment, he felt his heart flutter as he beheld the bedraggled angel with burning eyes. Then, he closed his own eyes and turned away, feeling defeated and deflated.

If she was one of God's angels, then he knew for certain that he belonged in hell.


	10. A Strange and Terrible Thing

Even as he moved away, heading back to the principal chambers of his lair, he was painfully aware of her still standing on the rocky ledge.

Damn her! Damn her, damn her, damn her!

Grudgingly, he turned around, his face twisted with heart-rending bitterness.

"Come down from there," he growled, averting his eyes as she scrambled down the path to join him at his side. For the first time, he took notice of her damp hair, her stocking feet, the goose bumps on her skin.

Grinding his teeth in frustration, he motioned for her to follow him, trying not to listen to the sound of her teeth chattering. He was torn as to what to do for her. He did not want to take her into Christine's sleeping cove. That was sacred space. Christine's light perfume still clung to the red velvet blankets, and he jealously guarded what little of Christine's presence lingered in his home.

The organ stool wasn't very comfortable, and he suddenly felt very reluctant to have her sit at his desk where she could see his drawings, the stage, the figurines…He felt an odd pang, realizing he had never bothered to make a figurine for the dancer. He shook his head slightly, trying to marshal his thoughts back to the problem at hand.

No, the only place for him to put the shivering, irritating angel was his own bed chamber. Damn her! He felt a surge of irrational irritation with Rose. Why was it that whenever he was in her presence, she seemed to strip away the mystique of ghost and angel from him? She reduced him to a mere mortal, to being simply a man.

_And yet, is that not what he longed to be? Just a man as any other?_

Damn her! He frowned deeply as he picked up a candelabra and brought her to his bed chamber, which was nothing more than a small, dark alcove. The candlelight threw enough light into the room for Rose to see that there was a low, wide bed covered with black silk sheets and heavy black velvet blankets. There was an ornately-carved armoire that looked like it had come from one of the dressing rooms belonging to one of the stars. Piled around the bed were books. Some were half-open, some had quills stuck between the pages, some lay carelessly open to whatever page he had abandoned them on. There were no mirrors in the small chamber.

"Sit," he growled, pointing to the bed, hardening his heart against the sight of the ghostly white figure with angel's wings sinking down onto the edge of his bed. _His_ bed…a woman sitting on _his_ bed. He would have laughed at the deep irony of it all if he wasn't so damn irritated.

From inside the armoire, he took out another thick, black woolen blanket, exquisitely soft to the touch. He went back over to her and was about to drape it around her shoulders when he noticed a problem.

With a snarl, he sat down next to her on the bed. She didn't flinch. She didn't move. In fact, the only thing she did was look at him with her wide, weary grey eyes. He stopped, the color draining from his face. Suddenly, it was he who was frightened. What kind of girl sat so coolly next to a murderer, a monster, the devil himself? What kind of suffering had she endured that a man's sudden advance and proximity caused her no alarm?

For a moment, in the flickering candlelight, he almost believed that she was an angel. Silent and beautiful, she sat next to him like some otherworldly caller, a creature beyond the pale of ordinary fear and pain. She was not like his beloved Christine. No, that he knew. Christine was a cherub, a sweet bud on the verge of a seductive bloom. He had held Christine in his heart, safely cocooned by his total understanding of the orphan he had befriended so many years ago.

But this…this Rose…she was wild and beyond the grasp of his understanding. Or perhaps he understood her all too well because she was too much like himself.

"I am sorry."

Her gentle whisper broke into his musings. He started from his reverie, shocked to see tears begin to spill down her cold face. This was a girl whom he had never seen cry, despite the regular downpours from all the other ballet rats.

"What for?" he managed to reply in a strangled whisper, watching as her thin face seemed to crumple like a child whose world has fallen in around them.

"I am so sorry for everything you are suffering," Rose said softly, her voice hoarse from her encounter with the Punjab Lasso. "I am so sorry for what the world must be like for you. I am so sorry that you have to live like this, that you can't reach for things in the sun like other people."

He was stunned, and he stared at her in disbelief. Her words were the last thing he had ever expected to hear from her. He knew her tongue to be sharp and mocking, practical and honest. But never had he heard such soft words from her. Any lingering resentment he felt seemed to burn away like mist in the sun.

Without realizing what he was doing, he lifted his fingers to her face, the warm tips brushing the salty drops that rolled down her cheeks. The gesture seemed to be her undoing. She began to cry in earnest, her thin shoulders shaking as she still tried to hold in the surging grief she felt.

"Rose…Rose…" he whispered, making his voice low and soothing, as if cooing to a babe. He risked cupping her cheek with his hand, shocked at the difference between his warm skin and her icy flesh.

"You deserve to be happy, and it's not fair that you can't be," Rose croaked between hiccups and sobs. "I've seen how horrible the world is, and how unhappy people are, even when they should be happy or could be happy. And I know you want to be happy. We all do. And we all can't. It's just not fair!"

He listened to her rambling in silence. Closing his eyes, he sought to burn this moment into his mind. The proximity of a soft, sweet creature who blessed him with her holy tears. The words of genuine compassion that spilled from her trembling lips – words he had longed all his life to hear…words he wanted so badly to hear from Christine…words he would win from his angel of music no matter what…

"Hush, Rose," he whispered absently, his thought swirling confusedly between Christine and Rose.

"No!" Rose cried, lifting her face to look up into his. "You don't understand. I mean, you don't understand that I understand. I know what…_they_…do to you. I know how the world scorns you as something less than humor."

"Human," he corrected automatically, a slight smile coming to his lips despite the delicious agony of spirit he felt. Flashes of eavesdropping on Rose's mixed up French over the past few months flew through his mind, and his smile softened somewhat.

Rose smiled back through her tears and even managed a little self-deprecating laugh. She reached up and covered the hand that held her cheek with her own. He stiffened at her touch. Her hands were like ice, but that didn't explain the shiver that ran through him.

He knew he should pull away, walk away, drive her from his presence. Yet, his hand refused to move from her face, just as his eyes refused to stop studying the way the unshed teardrops clung to her eyelashes.

"I am so sorry," she repeated softly, coughing slightly at the irritation the act of talking caused in her bruised throat.

"Then you are the only one who is," he found himself replying more coldly than he had intended. He finally withdrew his hand and straightened his posture.

"Turn around," he said quietly. "I must take off your wings."

She obeyed with a little laugh, saying, "Yes, for I am no more an angel than you are a ghost."

"Ah yes, I have been meaning to have a word with you about that," he said with a chuckle before he could stop himself. But before he could go on, he was caught off guard by a spurt of irrepressible laughter from Rose – laughter that ended in her choking, coughing and clutching her throat.

She had laughed…with him. Not at him. With him. She had laughed with him as if they were old friends sharing a joke, as if they were simply a man and a woman, not an orphaned dancer and a monster of music.

He hoped she didn't notice how his fingers trembled as he untied the wings from her costume. He almost physically had to hold himself back from running his hands along her back, to feel the firmness of her body under the slippery silk of her dress. He gritted his teeth and pushed back memories of the feel of her body in his hands as they had danced together in the moonlight all those weeks ago.

He noticed that she had stilled, as if waiting for something to happen. With a weary, silent sigh, he picked up the soft black blanket and wrapped it around her, carefully avoiding touching her further.

She turned back around to face him, her tear-limned eyes searching his. Unable to help himself, he reached up and softly caressed her cheek again. He felt his heart jump into his throat when her eyes fluttered shut, and her body relaxed imperceptibly.

Traitor! His mind roared at him. How could he be doing this? It was Christine he watched to touch, to caress, not some runaway from the gypsies! It was Christine's music he wanted to have fill his heart, not the compassionate tears of a dancer.

Oh, but she was warm and soft, his heart whispered in the storm of his thoughts. And she was here, willingly. No trickery had brought her here, no spell kept her here. He could take her in his arms, if he wanted, his heart urged slyly. She wouldn't shy away. He could hold something warm and soft of his own…

He wanted Christine.

He wanted to be seen as just a man like any other.

He wanted the comfort of a woman's touch.

He wanted to feel Rose's heartbeat.

He wanted to hear Christine's voice soaring, calling for him.

He wanted to feel Rose's warm breath against his skin.

He wanted peace.

His chest rose and fell in hard, heavy breaths as he gently took Rose in his arms. Oh the agony of joy as he felt her slender arms wrap around his neck, to have another human being willingly embrace him! He shuddered as he tried to repress a sob.

Was he so weak a creature that he would take comfort where he could get it, even if it meant betraying what he believed to be his pure, unchangeable love for Christine?

A dark voice in his soul reminded him of the rooftop ardor his precious, pure Christine had shared with that boy-noble, even as she had told of how his voice alone could make her soul soar.

Love, he decided, was a strange and terrible thing. And with blazing eyes and burning lips, he claimed Rose's mouth.


	11. Words and Water

To kiss a woman was a delirious experience, he decided as his lips fervently pressed against Rose's heart-shaped mouth over and over again. Now, he had some measure of sympathy for the stagehands who were always trying to get the curvaceous little ballet rats in a corner and steal kisses from them.

When Rose didn't pull away, he felt he might die of pure pleasure. Slowly, he let his hands wander and caress the firm, slender lines of her back, relishing the sound of his skin catching on the raw silk of her dress.

Oh, she smelled of rain and soap, and he longed to taste it on her skin. Would she let him? Did he dare? Suddenly, he grew tense and doubted, remembering her frightened eyes when Buquet had taken his liberties. And yet…yet somehow he found his mouth had wandered from her honeyed mouth and were searching out the warm, secret skin between her jaw and her neck.

He felt her jagged gasps as his hands firmly encircled her ribs, boldly holding her firmly and possessively. Oh, if only this were Christine! What pleasure he could give her! There was nothing he would not do to hear passionate bliss in his darling's voice.

With aching slowness that made his sinews crack with the effort of holding himself in check, he let his lips slide down the length of Rose's cool, graceful throat until they found the hollow at the base of it. From there, he worked his kisses back up to her mouth. By now, his kisses had become hungrier, more demanding, more daring. He opened her mouth with his tongue and freely tasted of her flavor of sugar and wine. One of his hands had wound itself into her tumbling brown mane, and he growled as he felt her slender hands clutching at the collar of his shirt, his shoulders, his arms.

She seemed to swoon in his embrace, and he nearly swooned himself at the pleasure of feeling her gentle weight of her lithe frame in his arms. Her warm breath was on his skin, and he found himself smiling, dazed and desiring this angel enshrouded in black in his arms. He let his eyes drift open to gaze at her, jarred for a moment that it wasn't Christine. But perhaps more jarring was the look in Rose's eyes as she returned his regard.

He had not had many occasions to learn what the expression of tenderness looked like in other people's faces. Fear, anger, hatred, greed – those he knew like his own reflection. Pity – yes, he had seen pity a few times. But…tenderness…

He nearly dropped her at the shock he felt at seeing such an alien expression on her ordinary features. She seemed transformed to his eyes – lighter, softer…even pretty. Gently, he lowered her down onto the thick, black velvet covers. His nostrils flared in surprise when she actually pulled him down with her, clinging to his shirtfront.

Did she not know what she was doing? Did she not care that she tempted the devil himself? God, her lips, her skin!

Unable to reason through the thick, viscous desire he suddenly felt surging through him, he fell upon her, his lips savagely taking hers, his hands roaming over her smooth belly as he stretched out alongside her so as not to crush her with his weight.

God! What was he doing? He was mad. She was mad. Bliss and madness were but two sides of the same coin. Drowning in kisses that fell like hard rain between them, he gathered her to him and groaned into her mouth with delight to feel her body pressed to his.

"Where is she?"

The woman's voice bounced and echoed jarringly off the uneven walls of the cavern. Rose's gasp was sharp and painful as she started in his embrace. But in a flash, he was off the bed, crossing his lair with large, angry strides of denied desire and territorial rage.

"Where is she?" Madame Giry's clear, angry voice rang out again as she faced the charging panther without fear.

"She is here," he growled, murder and menace making his voice thick and rough. "But you should not be."

"She is _mine_!" Madame Giry said icily, hiding away the sudden stab of fear she felt at the sight of his disheveled appearance, half-open shirt and darkly flushed skin.

He regarded her in burning silence.

"You cannot have her!" Madame Giry snapped.

"I do not want her!" he snapped back before he realized that the words were out of his mouth. "I want Chris…tine…"

He realized what he had said just as a small figure in sodden white silk flitted past them, seeming to fly up the steep ledge and disappear into the darkness.

"Then stay away from her," Madame Giry hissed, the murderous glint in her clear dark eyes almost as vivid as his own had been. She turned on her heel and nimbly left the cavern.

He stood there as if frozen. What had he done? What had he said? And yet…

…every word had been true. Hadn't it?

* * *

_**A/N: Sorry for such a long delay. I had to work through several versions of this chapter to get it right, and my muse needed a tune-up. So…it's a short chapter, but at least things are moving again. Thanks once more to all my reviewers. It makes all the difference in the world to me and keeps me going! **_

**_Kate S._**


	12. The Devil's Redemption

**A/N: I am so sorry for being remiss in updating. But I've been having a terrible argument with myself no I haven't! about which direction to choose for this chapter. If you'd just listen to me, it would have been written already Shuddup! No, you! No, you! My idea is better so – umph! shoves mouthy alter-ego in a box Anyhoo…I hope you enjoy…and as always, my heartfelt thanks to the reviewers.**

* * *

If there truly was a ghost of the Opera Populaire, it was the pale dancer who went through the motions of living and dancing, but seemed to exist in some kind of private purgatory.

Madame Giry had tried to speak with Rose after having found her in the catacombs. But Rose remained steadfastly mute, offering neither rage nor sorrow in response to the ballet mistress' comfort. Rose had simply remained within herself, choosing the safe haven of dignity in order to deny the weakness she felt she had shown…the vulnerability that he had thrown back in her teeth with those cold, unthinking words.

Madame Giry watched nervously from the wings as three of the dancers began their seductive flamenco with their partners while Christine Daae and Ubaldo Piangi sang "The Point of No Return."

Christine's voice was pure and stretched to its limit by the music, tested on the rack of mad genius but not found wanting. Piangi's voice seemed warped and unable to bend as the music demanded. And the choreography he had mandated for this song! Good heavens, but the pairing was frightening. Piangi – nearly half a foot shorter – running his podgy little hands over Christine's body.

Raoul de Chagny was there, as always, when Christine was on stage now – even when just in rehearsals. Madame Giry saw him sitting up in the managers' box, rubbing his jaw and staring possessively at his fiancée. Madame Giry glanced up at Box 5, which was predictably empty. But somehow…somehow, she knew the composer was keeping an eye on his show.

The duet was nearly at an end, and Christine and Piangi as Don Juan and Aminta were due to retire off stage and allow the flamenco dance to resume. Madame Giry's glance at the opposite wings showed a white-faced Rose, thin and determined, ready to make her entrance. This was the first time Rose would dance his flamenco on stage.

Rose came out in long, sweeping steps, the train of her tight red gown trailing behind her. Madame Giry nearly gasped audibly. This was the Rose as she had seen her before…before…This was the young woman who came alive in dance, who needed no words other than the movement of her body to express exactly what she was thinking.

Every action, every turn of her head, every step, leap and spin was a screaming declaration of passion and pain. Betrayal and desire, innocence and lust, all easily conveyed as if she were speaking.

He watched and felt as if his heart was being strangled in his chest. Here was the accusation he knew he deserved. Here was the recrimination that took the place of angry tears. Here was evidence of one of his most monstrous acts.

And yet, as much pity as he felt, he knew his words had been…true. He desired Christine. Even now, his fingers itched to squeeze the life out of Piangi for touching her. The only consolation was that he had choreographed those movements for himself, to practice so that when he sang to her, when he told her of his love, all he would have to do is think of that…not pay attention to the mechanics of performance.

His eyes remained fixed on the stage, and he found his thoughts dragging back to the tiny dancer who dominated the space with a demanding, commanding presence. Uncomfortable flashes of that lithe frame in his arms, responding ardently to his kisses, his touch, inviting him to an intimacy when no one else had even dared touch his hand…

…except Christine, of course. He had caressed her, even carried her to her virgin bed. But, the unhappy thought came to him of how all touching between them had ceased once she had seen his face…damn her for removing his mask! Rose hadn't, though undoubtedly she was curious.

He almost laughed at that moment. Here he was, the monster to end all monsters, struggling like a lovelorn youth between two women! But a dark sobriety instantly engulfed the moment of levity as Rose sank to her knees, sweeping her arms across the floor in a gesture of agony.

He could take her in his arms, kiss her, caress her, smooth away with his thumb that little wrinkle that appeared between her brows. And somehow, he felt that she would…be content to be held by him…that she would not rip away that mask, that horrible, raping gesture that was the cruelest thing….damn Christine!

But he would have Christine, oh yes he would. This opera was written in his blood, every note was a beat of his heart, and all of it for her. She would throw her lot in with his…or be made to. But he would have her.

In the madness that consumed him, one stray thought of calm and sanity lingered. He would make amends to Rose before chaos consumed them all.

* * *

"What!"

Rose's surprise was evident, the single word infused with both confusion and anger.

"Why am I being pulled?" she demanded fiercely, glaring at Madame Giry.

"Because, _ma fille_, that is what he wants," the older woman said wearily, fighting her own swell of anger.

"It's not fair!" Rose said, choking up on an entirely different emotion.

Madame Giry sighed, fingering the black-edged note she held. "He is often capricious," she commented dryly. "But this time, I do believe it is for the best."

Rose's jaw set, and her eyes were suspiciously bright. "He wrote that flamenco for me," she said between clenched teeth. "I put everything I had into it to show him that I could…I could…I could do it even after…"

"Perhaps that is why," Madame Giry said softly, reaching out to touch the girl's shoulder, noting sadly that she nearly winced at the touch. "Perhaps he wanted you spared the taint of this sordid –"

"It is not sordid!" Rose flashed, knowing in that quiet part of her soul where the storm didn't rage that her words did not match the real reasons for her anger. "It is a work of genius. And if Christine does not understand that, does not understand what he has done, why he –"

"Christine's reasons are her own and not yours to dictate," riposted Madame Giry, interrupting in her turn.

Rose's face crumpled, and she looked small and forlorn.

"Do not mourn for a fate you cannot have and would not want to have," Madame Giry said calmly. "This story was set to play out long before you set foot in this opera house. Be glad he considers you worth saving. It is not a redemption he confers on many. Not even Christine."

Rose, biting back unladylike words for which she didn't know the French equivalent, simply nodded and left Madame Giry's dressing room.

She climbed the stairs to the rotunda. Of late, she had taken to retreating to the strange little dusty attic. Looking down at the intricate pattern of the chandelier had seemed to soothe her, as if her thoughts were captured and reflected in each one of the crystals.

Silently, she pushed open the door, but froze on the threshold.

He looked up just as he took hold of the final rope. It never hurt to be prepared, and his success as the Opera Ghost had been predicated on careful planning and an unending attention to detail.

"What are you doing?" Rose asked, her face going white at the sight of him holding the ropes to the chandelier.

He couldn't very well tell her, and yet, he clearly couldn't deny it, either.

"What do you think I'm doing?" he replied, his voice a low, intense whisper, his eyes fixed on her. Lord God, but she was tiny! He had only seen her from a safe distance since that night of the masquerade ball. But now, in the same room with him, almost close enough for him to touch…she seemed fragile, breakable, even smaller than when he had held her, warm and soft in his arms.

Rose stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. She turned back to face him, her expression unreadable.

The very gracefulness of her step made his breath catch in his throat. Christine, he thought. Remember Christine, Christine, Christine…

"I want you to know that I…forgive you," Rose said, her voice tight and pained, as if each word cost her heart a drop of blood.

Rose, Rose, Rose…the mantra suddenly changed with her words. She forgave him! She pardoned his sin against her! She…she…was so brave, so good, so like the angel he pretended to be.

He remembered the sight of her, the bedraggled, invading angel standing resolutely on the rocky ledge in his lair.

"You are kind," he murmured, the hands that held the rope white-knuckled.

"No," Rose replied instantly. "I am foolish."

There was a moment where it seemed as if one or the other was on the verge of saying something more, where their gazes lingered. Then, suddenly, in a swish of skirt and silk, Rose was gone.

He stood still, a statue in agony. His eyes remained fixed on the door whence she had fled. His mouth worked in a strange grimace, and his hands tightened convulsively on the rope.

Finally, with the sigh of a condemned man, he finished tying off the chandelier.


	13. The Monster's Fairytale

Perhaps madness was simply a symptom of actually living, he decided as he beheld Christine's tear-stained, stricken face. He had only felt alive since actually touching her, all those fateful months ago, and since then, he had been mired in the deepest, most unforgiving madness.

Above them, a glorious blaze consumed his papier-mache principality. Could fire melt crystal? He did not know. He did not care. Christine stood before him, dressed in white, calling him a madman. But she wore his wedding gown. Soon she would wear the tiny gold ring he kept in his pocket for her.

He proclaimed his love for her. He laid all the agony of his lonely soul at her feet, his plea sounding more threatening than beseeching, but it was beggary nonetheless. He swore she would be his most cherished bride, his beloved wife, the angel of a new, pristine house with a new, pristine life.

And then that boy…that boy…pretty in face and pretty in soul…

He had come, like a swashbuckling hero to the aid of his damsel. His damsel! A thousand times no! Christine belonged to the angel of music. She had said as much on that rooftop, even as she had turned her lips to the boy noble's gentle kiss.

Damn! His head pounded, his vision was blurry, pulsing with each beat of his tortured heart. He did no know what words he spoke. There was rope in his hands, he made sounds like ragged roars that could have been threats or pleas – he knew not which. He was surprised the water of the lagoon did not steam about him as he stood knee-high in it, so hot was his body with rage and fear…oh the fear…the fear of the sorrow that would surely kill him if she left him now.

And then she had kissed him. Sweet, soft kisses. Pleading kisses. Kisses that masqueraded as love, that whispered a promise with a forked tongue.

He knew the difference in kisses. Like a cool breeze, the thought of Rose washed over him. The fiery rage he felt was doused by the memory of her kisses, her hungry, clumsy, innocent kisses. He remembered her in his arms, twining her fingers around the ruffles of his shirt and pulling him down with her onto the bed…

As he looked into Christine's uncertain eyes, he saw Rose, her goodness, her sorrow, her honesty. Rose, who had danced for him with a broken heart. Rose, who had stood firm before his fearsome temper. Rose, who cried for his unhappiness, sitting on his bed with her own broken wings.

Oh God, what had he done?

Feeling as though death was near, he stepped back from Christine. He saw the confusion, the flash of fear in her eyes. He murmured broken words, sending her away. The fairy princess had earned her fairytale ending by kissing the monster and setting him free.

He still felt the enormity of his love for Christine. It welled up within his heart and spilled over, running off his body like heavy rain. He called his love to her one final time, clutching the ring she had given him.

There was a strange, exhausted peace for a moment. A few brief heartbeats when he was alone, after the prince and princess had left the dragon's lair and before the village mob set upon him with pitchforks and torches.

Rose…Christine…oh that he wished his heart had never learned to beat!

But that was false. In six months, he had tasted of more glory, more pain, more life than in thirty years. And in the end, he had discovered who he truly was.

He was a man. Just a man.

It was all gone. Empty. Shattered. No more illusions. No mask to hide behind. Nothing to shield him from the truth.

And oh, the agony of truth! Oh, its beauty, its terror, its fragility! Behold the strength that the sweetest of emotions could give one – this strange and terrible thing called love, as intangible as breath and sand, and as irreversible as words and water poured out, but pure enough to redeem the devil.

And in that moment, he knew that there was only one person who truly loved him…and whom he truly loved.

There was one person who had never turned from him, never feared him. The ballet teacher had introduced a gift horse into Troy, and his world had been shattered. He had been the pot calling the kettle black when he mocked the ballet teacher's obsession with the young ballerina. Though Carthage had fallen, she had carried Hannibal on her delicate shoulders, dancing as beautifully as Christine had sung. And it was in that first springtime of her dance that he had felt something more, and yet something less. This girl who had called the ghost a git and chased him like a billy goat through the perilous passages made him feel like a man…and just a man, even if all he could ever be was the dregs of humanity. Only she could have laughed at his cape and then taken it back with a sweet humility that stemmed his rage.

He shattered the mirrors in a final, empty act of senselessness, then slipped away into a secret passage to find his Madonna of the rocks.

* * *

Madame Giry had never known herself to be this weary, not even in those distant days of her youth when she had ached from fatigue from her dancing.

Finding a place to live, collecting what remained of their belongings and taking care of Meg and Rose, all the time consumed with fear for what had happened to Christine, to Raoul, and to him – well, it was exhausting.

The only mercy had been a note delivered by a solicitor to her as she stood on the steps of the charred and ruined opera. When she demanded whom he represented, and how did he know to bring this note to her, he demurred, simply saying that he had standing instructions that in case of a disaster at the opera, he was to deliver this letter to Madame Giry, former ballet mistress of the Opera Populaire.

Inside the letter had been the number of a bank account, set up in her name, that held an ungodly amount of money. Enough money to never have to work again. Enough money to see Meg well married. Enough money to repay a fealty that she now saw as baptized in blood and dissolved by death.

But never in the frantic 48 hours after the fire had she expected to open the door to her anonymous flat near Montparnasse and see him standing on the threshold.

A dismal, rainy night had fallen on Paris, as evidenced by his drenched, shadowy figure.

"You!" Madame Giry gave a strangled cry, her reserve cracking under the strain.

He bowed his head, the thin hair on the good side of his skull hanging damply in his face. Madame Giry felt a faint wave of nausea at seeing him like this on her threshold. Without his mask, his wig, his cape…he seemed naked, smaller, human. He was the boy in the cage whose eyes had filled with tears when the bag had been ripped from his head.

He was just a lost man on her doorstep.

And yet, seeing him there was the final blow that convinced her dizzied senses that this was indeed real and no nightmare. The world had changed because one man had changed. And it would never be the same again.

"May I…come in?" he whispered, his head still bowed. His voice sounded raw and awkward as it tried to frame unfamiliar social words.

Silently, Madame Giry stepped aside and allowed him to enter. He stood in the small foyer, uncertain as to what to do in such a conventional setting. He squinted in the uncomfortable brightness of the gas lights, regarding the plain, rented furniture of the hallway.

"Thank you," said Madame Giry unexpectedly.

He looked at her dazedly. He was still mad, he decided. This woman had just thanked him.

"For the money," she added.

He ducked his head again, the good side of his face visible to her in profile. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides.

"Your daughter…she is safe?" he asked haltingly, grudgingly pacing his inquiries.

"Yes," Madame Giry said simply. "She sleeps in the other room. She was very brave that night. If you wish to know who held the mob at bay, it was Meg. She bullied and ordered and cried to spare a man she did not even know. Obviously, she gave you enough time to get away."

He could hear the question in the woman's voice. She wanted to know what had happened. She wanted to know if Christine and Raoul were safe. Oh, even to think those names and the madness they had inspired made his body hurt with shame. But this was his penance for his last act of monstrousness.

"No doubt the future vicomtesse will write to her and relate the circumstances of my escape in lurid detail," he said, his bitter words wobbly and clumsy, the speech of a man who lived in silence and spoke only in song.

Madame Giry's tired shoulders relaxed imperceptibly. She nodded her head slightly in acknowledgement. She knew what his next question would be, but he would have to ask it. The answer was not something one just volunteered.

"And Rose?" he managed at last, his voice barely a whisper.

Madame Giry remained silent, suddenly torn between rage and grief.

"Rose?" he asked again, more urgently.

When the older woman did not answer, he turned and advanced on her, his eyes growing wild and frantic.

"Where is she?" he panted, his voice rising, his body towering over the former ballerina. "Where is Rose? You know! Tell me!"

When she simply looked up at him with all that she felt in her eyes, he stumbled back as if struck.

No…no…not that! Not that! NOT THAT!

"Did you call my name, Madame?" came a weak, scratchy voice from the door to the parlor.

He nearly collapsed in relief when he heard Rose's voice. For a moment, he had thought that the blood of one more innocent was on his hands…that he had committed his worst sin yet. But no, she lived.

But barely, it would seem.

Rose limped into view, stopping in her tracks as she caught sight of him. He couldn't contain his anguish, and it played openly over both his ruined and his good features.

Her brown hair hung down around her shoulders, but in haphazard locks – clearly indicating that some of it had been cut off – or burned off. The right side of her face was bruised and scratched, with small, angry red blisters of burns dotting her skin. She wore a loose white nightshift that made her look all the more fragile, and both her hands were completely bandaged.

But even more than that…she stood with crutches, holding one foot up, wrapped tightly and splinted. Her delicate face was a mask of physical pain, while her eyes shone with the holy torment of pure emotion.

He dropped to his knees, crushed by his grief.

Madame Giry watched him dispassionately, enjoying his anguish for a brief moment. It was no less than he deserved, though she felt a twinge of shame at such an unworthy sentiment.

"When Piangi was discovered dead, Carlotta refused to leave him," Madame Giry said coldly. "Rose tried to drag Carlotta from Piangi's side. But the proscenium crashed down around them. Carlotta did not survive. Rose did. But she will never dance again…thanks to you."

His face crumpled with utter despair. He would have wailed if his voice was not raw from all the tears he had already shed. What had he done? What had he done? Oh God! What had he done?

"Things change in life, Madame," Rose said quietly. Despite the unceasing pain she felt in her body, the feverish ache and the indescribable torture of the burns and broken bones, her heart felt a torment a thousand times worse at seeing this wretched man on his knees.

Rose hobbled over to him, her sorrowful eyes on his anguished ones. She reached out a bandaged hand to touch his shoulder, caught sight of the bandage and thought better of it. Instead, she leaned forward and kissed him on the top of his head.

He raised his hands to her in a gesture of imploring. Tears sprung to her eyes, as the love and hurt and joy and sorrow in her own heart welled up. For a moment, she swayed on the crutches she leaned on. Instinctively, he placed his hands on her hips to steady her.

"We are all lost," Rose murmured, the tears running freely down her face. "But no one should be bereft of comfort where there is yet some to be had."

She looked to Madame Giry, whose own eyes were suspiciously bright.

"We have no extra bedrooms," the older woman said softly, addressing him. "But you may stay in the parlor until things become clearer."

"Rose," he whispered, her name lingering on his lips like a prayer.

The girl turned to him, her serious, sorrowful face etched with lines of pain and beauty.

"What is your name?" she asked simply.

He paused, flashes of his life playing out. _Devil's child, phantom, opera ghost, angel of music, Erik…_Those names belonged to a monster. He was just a man.

"I have no name," he said simply, raising the hem of her nightdress to his lips and kissing it reverently. "You will have to give me one."

**Fin**

* * *

**A/N: Okay…this kind of surprised me. I didn't mean to end the story there. But it just happened that way. It just struck me as poetic and sweet and right. I'm sorry if anybody wanted more chapters. But I'll offer this as a consolation – I will probably start a new Phantom fan fic very soon **

**On a more serious note, I wish to thank everyone that has reviewed, emailed me, encouraged, questioned and cajoled. Your feedback has made all the difference and given me a reason to keep writing. Just to know that someone was reading what I wrote was the most amazing experience I've ever had. And therefore, a thousand thanks.**

**I remain your obedient,**

**Kate September**


End file.
